UK National Lottery news, information and opinion from Sam Weren

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Something a bit different. here’s some news from National Lotteries around the World that you wouldn’t normally hear of.

The Dominican National Lottery has signed a new 10 year deal with the Spanish state-owned lottery operator to expand the Dominican lottery. It’s the first deal of its kind in Latin America and will mean that the famous El Gordo will be available to residents of The Dominican Republic.

The Nigerian National Lottery is said to be capable of generating N350 billion for the Federal Government if it is properly run. That equates to US$2.2 billion or £1.4 billion. But achieving the “properly” could be more difficult in a country torn by corruption IMO.

In Bangcock, the Thailand National Lottery is contemplating launching an online lottery once again. The the on-and-off-and-on-and-off-again campaign began back in the Thaksin administration period and has been a political football ever since.

And finally the Belgian National Lottery Lotto has said that it will continue to support its cycling team in the Tour de France and will push to clean up the sport by demanding zero tolerance of its riders.

The Health Lottery celebrated one year in action with the launch of a wednesday drawing to add to the usual Saturday draw on Wednesday 17th october, 2012.

The odds of winning any of the main prizes remain the same, the most notable of which is 1 : 2,118,760 chance of wining the jackpot of £100,000. But the Wednesday health Lottery draw will not include Hot Ticket draws (which guarantee a £100,000 like the millionaire raffle on EuroMillions). More details of the Health lottery can be found here.

The first draw was a success for players with three players bagging the top prize and 8,000 ticket holders winning £250 or £20 (still annoying that the Health Lottery do not tell us the proper split of lower prize winners). the winning numbers were 1 – 2 – 5 – 8 -10

The current Irish National Lottery licence was issued as long ago as December 2001 and is now getting close to expiry at the end of June in 2013.

Yesterday the Minister for Expenditure & Public Reform, Mr Brendan Howlin, announced that the next Irish National Lottery licence will be put out for tender and that it will last for a whopping 20 years.

No doubt the new extended term is designed to get a larger up-front payment from the operator to the State, which in turn will be used to reduce the deficit and make the Government look good.

Paula Radcliffe has been removed from the list of athletes who receive lottery funding. That in itself is not much of a surprise. After all, Radcliffe is now 38 years old and seems to be injury prone at present – years of marathon running are bound to take a toll on the body. What is more, UK Athletics has been working towards the cycling model that if an athlete doesn’t look like a gold medal contender, then they aren’t interested.

What is surprising to me, and maybe a lot of people is why Paula was still receiving national lottery funding. Surely the funding is meant for up and coming athletes; athletes that haven’t broken through and who can’t afford to enter or get to races through lack of money. Or to help an athlete with expenses like a travelling physio, to enable them to perform at their peak.

Yet Paula has to be pretty well off. The British runner won the New York marathon in 2004, 2007 and 2008, the prize for which is $200,000. Then there’s £164,000 for winning the London marathon, earnings from an imaginatively names autobiography “my story so far” and lucrative deals with sponsors like Nike and Cadbury’s.

So while the Daily Mail might tut-tut at how a nation’s favourite could be treated so shabbily, it is probably for the betterment of sport.